Bursts of Activity

The STEREO Ahead spacecraft was watching when several events occurred in just two days (Aug. 1-2, 2010). First, a flare and a coronal mass (CME) ejection blasted out early on Aug. 1, that sudden burst in the video clip that shot straight out to the left. Not long after that two prominences (darker strands of cooler gases above the Sun's surface) lifted up and broke away from the Sun, one after the other. These eruptions were likely triggered by the C-class flare (relatively minor) and CME. The solar movie shows the event in extreme ultraviolet light. The CME cloud of particles headed in Earth's direction and sparked widespread aurora on Aug. 3-4. You can see a video clip of the front of the CME cloud heading towards Earth (Aug. 1-3, 2010) taken by STEREO's HI2 instrument.